Page 555 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

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NEZAHUALCOYOTL of the god Tlaloc; and an unillustrated calendar Ponder on this,
again dealing with the festivals of the eighteen Eagle and Jaguar Knights,
late 16—early iyth century "months." Though you were carved in jade,
colonial Mexican The subject of this drawing is the remarkable Though you were made of gold,
fol 106 of Codex Ixtlilxochitl Nezahualcoyotl (or, to give him his honorific You will also go thither
ink and watercolor on paper name, Nezahualcoyotzin), who had a long and To the abode of the fleshless.
2
l
31 x 21 fi2 /s x 8 /4) distinguished career as tlatoani (ruler) of Texcoco. We must all vanish,
Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris He was born in the year i Rabbit (1402), suc- None may remain.
ceeded his father Ixtlilxochitl to the throne in
1431 or 1432, and reigned until he died in 1472. The artist who painted this section of the manu-
The Codex Ixtlilxochitl (see Durand-Forest 1976) Among his many military triumphs, he defeated script was probably a native who had been trained
is a booklike manuscript on European paper, the Tepanecs and personally sacrificed their tyran- in the European tradition of three-dimensional
apparently written by the native Texcocan histo- illusion. The king is shown from the back as a
rian Don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl (c. 1575- nical ruler. Nezahualcoyotl ("fasting coyote") was warrior in action, but the execution is decidedly
also a famous lawgiver, student of the
arts and
1658). There are three distinct parts to the manu- sciences, and poet. The verses attributed to him awkward. Nezahualcoyotl's feathered war costume
script, all of them in different hands: an illus- may represent a kind of horned owl; he carries on
trated account of the eighteen "months" of the (Davies 1980,126) have a distinct air of sadness his back a small huehuetl drum with drumstick to
and pessimism,
as can be seen in these lines:
solar year, drawn from the same lost original as indicate his high military rank. In his right hand
the Codex Magliabecchiano; highly Europeanized Just as a painting he wields a macuauhuitl, the terrible sword of
portraits of four Texcocan lords including the Our outlines will be dimmed, Aztec warfare — a heavy flat club of wood with
present drawing, a schematic drawing of the Great Just as a flower the edges set with razor-sharp obsidian blades,
Temple of Tenochtitlan, and a detailed watercolor We shall become dessicated attached to the right wrist by a cord. On his left

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